At eight o’clock the band commenced playing, and shortly afterwards the representation began.  The soldiers appeared, dressed in various costumes, as Highlanders, Poles, Spaniards, etc.; nor was there any scarcity of danseuses, who, of course, were likewise private soldiers.  What pleased me most was, that both the dress and behaviour of the military young ladies were highly becoming.  I had expected at least some little exaggeration, or at best no very elegant spectacle; and was therefore greatly astonished, not only with the correctness of the dances and evolutions, but also with the perfect propriety with which the whole affair was conducted.

The last fete that I saw took place on the 2nd of December, in celebration of the emperor’s birth-day.  After high mass, the different dignitaries again waited on the emperor, to offer their congratulations, and were admitted to the honour of kissing his hand, etc.  The imperial couple then placed themselves at a window of the palace, while the troops defiled before them, with their bands playing the most lively airs.  It would be difficult to find better dressed soldiers than those here:  every private might easily be mistaken for a lieutenant, or at least a non-commissioned officer; but unluckily, their bearing, size, and colour, are greatly out of keeping with the splendour of their uniform—­a mere boy of fourteen standing next to a full-grown, well-made man, a white coming after a black, and so on.

The men are pressed into the service; the time of serving is from four to six years.

I had heard and read a great deal in Europe of the natural magnificence and luxury of the Brazils—­of the ever clear and smiling sky, and the extraordinary charm of the continual spring; but though it is true that the vegetation is perhaps richer, and the fruitfulness of the soil more luxuriant and vigorous than in any other part of the world, and that every one who desires to see the working of nature in its greatest force and incessant activity, must come to Brazil; still it must not be thought that all is good and beautiful, and that there is nothing which will not weaken the magical effect of the first impression.

Although every one begins by praising the continual verdure and the uninterrupted splendour of spring met with in this country, he is, in the end, but too willing to allow, that even this, in time, loses its charm.  A little winter would be preferable, as the reawakening of nature, the resuscitation of the slumbering plants, the return of the sweet perfume of spring, enchants us all the more, simply because during a short period we have been deprived of it.

I found the climate and the air exceedingly oppressive; and the heat, although at that period hardly above 86 degrees in the shade, very weakening.  During the warm months, which last from the end of December to May, the heat rises in the shade to 99 degrees, and in the sun to above 122 degrees.  In Egypt, I bore a greater amount of heat with far greater ease; a circumstance which may perhaps be accounted for by the fact, that the climate is there drier, while here there is always an immense degree of moisture.  Fogs and mists are very common; the hills and eminences, nay, even whole tracts of country, are often enveloped in impenetrable gloom, and the whole atmosphere loaded with damp vapours.